On November 18th, The Thousands, an exhibition of some of the world’s best street art, will open in London for just 5 days. The Thousands will feature original work by some of the top names in street art: Faile, Banksy, KAWS, Shepard Fairey, Swoon, Herakut, Barry McGee and many more. Most of the work will come from private collections, but there will be a few brand new pieces direct from the artists.

Last summer, the Tate Modern put street art outside their museum, and this year the Bristol Museum let Banksy take over for a few months. Those are definite steps in the right direction, but The Thousands attempts to show the art world and the public that there are great works of art within the sphere of “street art,” and that street artists deserve a place in art history at least equal to that of The Young British Artists or the great pop artists. Unlike any show that a gallery can organize (not that there’s anything wrong with art galleries), the goal of The Thousands is not to sell work, but to publicize it, and the vast majority of the work on display won’t be for sale. It’s on loan from collectors. To help extend that promotion effort even further, Drago Lab will be publishing a companion book to the exhibition.

The name The Thousands comes in part from a short fable by Daniel Alarcón which was published in McSweeney’s #28. I see the story of “The Thousands” in street art all the time. Around the world there are thousands of anonymous and semi-anonymous people and artists working outside the restrictions of government and/or the art establishment to create something that cannot be understood by those authorities. And this exhibition highlights the best of those thousands so that the art establishment will hopefully begin to understand and appreciate these artists. So that’s why it’s called The Thousands.

The Thousands will be open from November 18th through the 22nd of November at Village Underground in London (54 Holywell Lane, London, EC2A 3PQ).

Also, if you’re a UK based street art collector and interested in getting involved with this project, I’m still looking for more artwork to borrow so just shoot me an email (rj@vandalog.com).

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